


burn this city (to let them know we’re here)

by MinSeulgi



Series: Monsta X Bingo Winter 2017 [2]
Category: Monsta X (Band), 우주소녀 | Cosmic Girls | WJSN
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Dark, F/M, M/M, Monsta X Bingo, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 07:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9809312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinSeulgi/pseuds/MinSeulgi
Summary: Hyunwoo takes a deep breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth, counting the seconds and trying to match his heartbeat to the spaces in between. It used to calm him once, a technique his mother had taught him when he was young and could still be taught to protect himself for the world. Now it serves as an eerie reminder.We’ll come for you.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Second fic for level 3 of the 2017 winter MX Bingo! Prompt is **Dystopian Future**.
> 
> Just the first scene/prologue for now, because this damn thing is turning out a lot longer than I thought it would. Should have been maybe 5 k. Total. Currently sitting at just over 4k, and I'm maybe 1/4 done with it. Squints hard. What is with Monsta X stories becoming literal monsters?
> 
> Other Starship idols are mentioned, but currently just that and will not be tagged.
> 
> Unbeta'd because I'm a lazy human. And because I have no beta. Whoops.
> 
> Music inspiration/aid: Game of Thrones Soundtrack, Sonic Syndicate's Burn This City and Love And Other Misadventures album, and Three Days Grace's Get Out Alive. Sonic Syndicate's Burn This City is where I snagged the title from!

 

> _There are so many moments in life and each one must serve a purpose,_  
>  _to connect us from then, to there. So how couldn’t you have known,_  
>  that this would be one of them?  
>  **pleasefindthis - i wrote this for you and only you, “The Moments Directly Before And After”**

***

_We’ll come for you._

Hyunwoo takes a deep breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth, counting the seconds and trying to match his heartbeat to the spaces in between. It used to calm him once, a technique his mother had taught him when he was young and could still be taught to protect himself for the world. Now it serves as an eerie reminder that even then, she had known that it would come to this, to her only son against one of his closest friends and people he’d grown up knowing all his life.

Somehow, inexplicably, she had known that one day it would be her son against the world.

“Hyunwoo!”

The voice from behind him has Hyunwoo turning, expression pinching in worry when he sees the diminutive form of one of the people he’d lived his entire life wishing to never see here, staying in the open doorway and staring at him with unmistakable terror in her eyes. “Dayoung...” His voice is soft, stunned, and a little bewildered. Habit has Hyunwoo glancing to his wrist, but his watch is gone, the accessory having been considered an outside aide. It had been taken away by the guard that had escorted him into the building to his starting room, the same guard that had confiscated his personal belongings when he’d first been taken into custody after the lottery.

Hyunwoo wonders if the guards are still around.

He also wonders if the cameras are already on, if his friends and Dayoung’s family can see them here together.

_We’ll come for you._

“Hyunwoo,” the girl tries again, looking so, so small against the backdrop of the dirty wall and otherwise empty hallway. She takes a faltering step forward, looking as if she can’t decide whether to stay or retreat back to her own room.

When Hyunwoo opens his arms, she steps into them, tiny arms snaking around his waist as she sags into his chest. Her faces presses into the fabric of his thin, standard-issue shirt, the male companion to the same one she wears. And when Dayoung speaks, Hyunwoo can feel her breath against his skin, her cheek over the please where his heart pounds at his ribcage.

He’s afraid.

But if the way Dayoung trembles is any indication, so is she.

“I don’t know if I can do it.”

Hyunwoo closes his eyes against the sting of tears, at the knowledge that this is it, this is their last fight. Luck had already been against them, found in the form of this year’s brutal competition, but Hyunwoo had still held hope -- for for himself, but for her. Because Dayong is so, so young, and the unspoken rule of the town is to let the young ones live.

But Dayoung is not the only youngster this year.

There’s her classmate, Jinsuk, who has an aging mother that needs constant care and supervision. The town is watching her now, Hyunwoo knows, because that’s just what they do, but where will she be if Jinsuk doesn’t return?

There’s also Minwoo, a young adult who now plays parent to his infant sister after the loss of both of their parents. Minhee is in the temporary care of another family while her brother is here in the building, but she’s so young, too young to grow up alone in a too-cruel world. No one would blame Minwoo for fighting to return to her.

The others are older, some Hyunwoo’s age, like Siyoung and Hyorin, and others older still. Hyungsoo is the oldest this time, just barely too young to make the age cut off. He turns thirty-six this year, but his name had still been in the lottery, and he’d been unlucky enough to be picked.

They all had been, Hyunwoo finds himself thinking as Dayoung’s shoulders begin to shake. They all had been unlucky enough to be picked.

“It’s okay,” he says after a moment, voice muted and thick with emotion. “You just have to make it to the end. You’ve seen the videos of the previous years. You know the places where smaller bodies can hide that brutes like me can’t get into--”

His words startle a laugh from Dayoung, what that continues for a long moment before being cut away when Dayoung’s mouth snaps shut. The click of her teeth colliding is unmistakable. “You’re not a brute, Hyunwoo. You’re like my brother.”

He knows. And he knows that’s what will make this all so much harder. “The others, then,” he persists, voice choked. “You know where to hide from them. Find food and water. Hide. Only come out when you have to. It’ll be okay.”

Dayoung nearly laughs again. There’s an odd tension in her shoulders, and a strangled noise that sounds like a dying thing gurgles in the back of her throat. When that dies, she’s silent for a long moment, a moment that Hyunwoo uses to breathe, to count his heartbeat and the seconds between it.

“What if I can’t do it?”

_We’ll come for you._

Hyunwoo swallows hard, hands gentle as he pulls Dayoung back and regards her. “You can,” he says. “I promise you can.”

Dayoung doesn’t look convinced, but it doesn’t matter. They both know there’s nothing more he can say on the topic, nothing more he can do until the game begins and the players are loosed into the building.

“You should go,” he says, leaning down to press his lips to her forehead. “When the sirens sounds, you need to be in your room, or you’ll be given a penalty.”

Dayoung blanches and takes a step back toward the door.

She has good reason to be afraid, too. Two years ago, two of the lottery winners had been caught in a room together before the game had officially begun, plotting how to take out the others and, according to rumors, escape. They were separated, put into new rooms, and given handicaps. The girl had been blindfolded and chained to a heater off to the far side of the room, her key just within reach if she stretched herself flat across the floor at the furthest corner of the heater and used every scant inch of her height. The boy had been handcuffed at the wrists and ankles, with his arms twisted back behind him. The key had been across the room and dangling from a string attached to a hook in the ceiling.

Both had been killed within the first thirty minutes, slaughtered by their opponents.

“I just wanted to see you,” Dayoung says, voice soft as she hesitates by the door. “In case I didn’t get to see you again.”

Hyunwoo is reminded that the last time they’d seen each other had been just before they’d been jailed to destroy any risk of flight. He’s missed her, too, but he’s not willing to risk her safety just for a little bit longer.

“I’ll find you.”

Dayoung stares Hyunwoo down, lips set in a sad and disbelieving downward curl. “You promise?”

“I promise.”

Dayoung looks like she wants to argue, like she wants to protest, but her fear is stronger than her curiosity or disbelief, and she leaves after one final backward glance.

Hyunwoo steps to the doorway long enough to watch her go, then retreats to the center of the room and pulls out the paper Jooheon had given him the last time they’d seen each other.

The paper is soft now, the roughness worn down from constant wear, the edges fraying and the folds so worn from the constant repetitive motion of being reopened and closed that they’re beginning to shatter and fall apart.

Hyunwoo doesn’t need to open it now to see the words written inside, but he does it anyway, desperate for the familiar comfort of Jooheon’s chicken scratch.

_We’ll come for you._

**Author's Note:**

> Still on the fence about whether to post the rest as one cohesive unit or whether to update it in individual scenes. 
> 
> If you think I'm missing tags or have questions, feel free to hit me up in the comments or find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CreateTheSound) or [CC](https://curiouscat.me/createthesound)!


End file.
